Vehicles which are sold and put into service in a country have to meet the
regulations and standards of that country. Every country has a separate
regulation and approval procedure which requires expensive design modifications,
additional tests and duplicating approvals. Thus, there is the need to harmonize
the different national technical requirements for vehicles and form a unique
international regulation. With this rationale, the World Forum for Harmonization
of Vehicle Regulations of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
(UN/ECE/WP29) has brought governments and automobile manufacturers together to
work on a new harmonized test cycle and procedure which is to be adopted around
the world. This lead to the development of Worldwide Harmonized Light Duty
Test Procedures (WLTP) and Cycles (WLTC). The test procedure is
divided into 3 cycles, depending on a power to mass ratio of the tested vehicle.
Test cycles in WLTP are developed with an aim to represent typical driving
conditions around the world. This was further shared across various
participating nations for evaluation and their recommendations on the same.
Evaluating new procedures and test cycles is a time consuming affair and is prone
to errors if evaluated by physical testing. Moreover it is tedious and
impractical to evaluate drivability and fuel economy of numerous vehicles on
WLTC using chassis dyno. In order to overcome above mentioned shortcomings,
methodology to use Simulation Tools was devised for the evaluation. This paper
provides an overview on how Software Tools such as Matlab/Simulink and AVL
Cruise have been effectively used to analyze different vehicles on
WLTC. Results of these analyses highlighted characteristics of
proposed test cycle and its impact on vehicle drivability and fuel consumption
of vehicle.
Based on these analyses necessary recommendations were provided during various
stages of WLTC development.